


Under the sky on Lakenheath

by ohwhatevers



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Murder, Graphic Description of Corpses, Investigations, based on an article, written for english langlit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 03:33:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11267079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwhatevers/pseuds/ohwhatevers
Summary: A short piece practicing different narrative voices for creative writing coursework based on the article by Nicci Gerard "Holly and Jessica - we'll Never Know" (2003) about the victims of the Soham Murders, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells.





	Under the sky on Lakenheath

**Author's Note:**

> (written 24/07/2016, I hope I've improved since then)  
> I have no knowledge of how an investigation or a house search is carried out, as you can tell!

“Do you think she’s stayed later?”

Mrs Wells turned away from the window where she had been watching the sun bleed over the rooftops and spill over the road. She held her hands in front of her mouth and fiddled with her lip before turning to her husband standing in the doorway.

“I’ll get the bikes, we’ll go look for them” Kevin Wells said and picked up the keys, tossing them in his hand. “They’ll be in the sweet shop or somewhere.” The sunset framed his wife in blurred red outlines, making her outline eerily translucent. The backdoor clicked shut behind him.

She stirred into life and turned into the hall to get her mobile from her coat -Holly would have texted her. It doesn’t comfort her, not knowing if they had left the Chapmans’ already, but they’re good girls: she will have texted or told Jess’ mum. She smiled, thinking about the many times impromptu sleepovers where decided after the manipulative pleading and negotiating skills of two excitable ten-year olds. When her husband got back she would send him off with a change of clothes.

Nothing. The screen was innocuously empty of messages or calls, just a small square of sickly green light with no new messages or missed calls. The dim hall seemed to grow darker, smaller, more cramped, and the hanging coats pressed against Nicola; soon all she could see was the titchy screen, all she could think about was the titchy, blank screen. The back door opened. She jumped and dashed to the kitchen. Kevin was toeing off his shoes. He was quiet and simply shook his head when he saw his wife.

 _That’s it_ , she thought. Before her resolve could crumble-she simply didn’t want to be a bother for anyone-she dialled the emergency services.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was outside the college, sitting on the low wall, and talking to the caretaker, Huntley, when a police officer jogged up, holding a hand to her chest to prevent her walkie-talkie from flying out. She paused and then,

“Found one! You journos are hard to find-” she grinned-“either yous’re in packs and we can’t get yous to leave, but I couldn’t find a single one a yous.” I asked her why she was looking for journalists anyway and she told me that there was a going to be a press conference to announce ‘a very important piece of information’. Huntley perked up at that. “Have they found the girls’ clothes?” he asked, turning to me for some reason. I didn’t know and neither did the police officer, who had introduced herself as DC Andrea Warren. Why would the clothes be separate from the girls, why would he ask that? The oddball left soon after.

“…weirds me out, that one,” Warren said after a short while. She looked at me sharply. “You’re from the local Standard, aren’t ya,” she asked and I nodded. We had been mostly overlooked and pushed aside by the national newspapers and the overbearing PR man from the Constabulary but I had endeavoured to be there at the back of every press conference. Warren was suddenly serious.

“This is in the strictest confidence, you understand, utterly off record”

“Of course,” I answered, “At least some of us have standards.” The tabloid spreads haunted me with their voyeurism, especially as I remembered the story we ran on majorette troupe the Welles daughter was part of so soon before they disappeared.

“We had searched his house at the start-just a protocol really, they weren’t gonna be there. But it was when me and another DC went to get him to sign the consent form for the search,” she trailed off. “He was very nervous, thought he was a suspect cause of the statement, perked up when we would question anyone that saw them no matter…” She looked pensive and I knew she was thinking about how long it had been since that day. I had to cheer her up, “They’ll be found,” I said. She smiled at me. “They will be found.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“If it’s from another bloody Marple wannabe I’ll bloody scream, I swear.”

PC Hardy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he swung the car to a stop by the lonely track. He felt uneasy about something, though his partner, PC Nelson, was as calm as usual and just flipped quietly through the slim report they had been handed. The blazing sun showed no sign of a summer storm and the blue of the sky was thin and pale, crisscrossed with vapour trails like too little glaze over too many cracks. The birds sang but the air was still and pregnant with heat on the fens as the two policemen got out of the car. Hardy studied the scrub around them as Nelson relayed what he had read. Man and his girlfriend out on a walk. Smelt something like meat in extreme stage of decay. Could have seen something in a deep ditch. Hadn’t investigating out of fear of disturbing evidence-

“Or there’s nothing there-just shit,” Hardy scoffed.

“Oh and a media officer attached guidelines in case it’s another dead lead,” added Nelson with a laugh. He knew the type of invective it would draw out Hardy and sure enough, he spent the trek along the path cursing out the PR department, the media, their bosses, and the poor quality of breakroom tea.

“Mind your French,” said Nelson when he had paused for breath. The ditch, when they got to it, drew a type of dusk into it, jealously guarding its depths. They dutifully cordoned it off with bright yellow tape and scrambled down, Hardy swearing loudly as he went. “French!” Nelson reminded him. The vegetation fought against them as they cut back nettles, sticky weed and brambles to undercover the source of the smell.

It was two bodies, flung like broken dolls, the skin rotting away to show blackened flesh and whitened bone. Flies crawled over the charred faces and the sleeping eyelids, or what was left of them; the blind eyes peeked out from the skin and unseeing into the heavens. Hardy stood silent as Nelson swore a blue streak beside him. They’d found the girls.


End file.
